


5 Things Sam Wilson Wanted To Ask Steve Rogers, and 1 Thing He Actually Did

by basset_voyager



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5 + 1 Things, Canonical Character Death, Gen, I have a lot of Sam Wilson feelings, M/M, steve/sam but mostly a sam-centric fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 12:57:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1649441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basset_voyager/pseuds/basset_voyager
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In eighth grade, Sam Wilson has a Captain America poster in his bedroom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	5 Things Sam Wilson Wanted To Ask Steve Rogers, and 1 Thing He Actually Did

**Author's Note:**

> 5 + 1 Things is one of my favorite tropes to read, but I had never written it before, so here's my attempt to remedy that. 
> 
> This fic was beta'd by the lovely humans [Katie](http://driftcompatible.tumblr.com) and [Kara](http://particularlyexistence.tumblr.com).

1

In eighth grade, Sam Wilson has a Captain America poster in his bedroom. It’s vintage, something his dad found in a second-hand shop somewhere and brought home for Sam’s birthday. He hangs it over the shelf where he keeps his toy planes, and every morning he wakes up to a star-spangled figure giving him a confident salute, the words WE CAN DO IT TOGETHER emblazoned underneath his shield. Years later, Sam will remember thinking that if Captain America were alive today and he cared what a black minister’s kid from Harlem thought, he would ask him what the hell those tiny wings coming out of his head were for. If you’re going to have wings, Sam figures, you might as well really commit to it.

2

The same year, when Sam’s class gets assigned reports on World War II, everybody wants to do theirs on Captain America. After all, who would want to research battles and politicians and death statistics when there’s a real-life superhero on the list? Eventually, Mrs. Gordon just puts everyone’s name in a hat and fishes one out at random. Sam gets picked. He’s always been lucky when it comes to little things like that.

Sam isn’t what you would call a fan of school – he wants to get out and do things, not just read about them – but he throws himself into the project, perching behind a stack of books in the public library for days reading about the life of Captain Steven Rogers. His mother gives him that long-suffering smile that only mothers can give as he trails behind her in the kitchen spouting fact after fact: “Did you know that Steve Rogers grew up in Brooklyn and he was poor and had asthma?” “Did you know that the Howling Commandos were the first integrated unit in the U.S. Army?” “Captain America rescued an entire unit from a Nazi camp by _himself_!”

Sam gets an A on the report. More importantly, Reggie Connors, who presents after him, smiles at him as they pass each other between the rows of desks. Reggie is laid back and good-looking, and Sam gets a funny twisting feeling in his stomach when they look at each other. Sam thinks that if he could meet Captain America, he’d ask him if those feelings were OK. That night, Sam sits cross-legged on his bed and looks at the man on the poster, eternally saluting and smiling from so many years ago, and decides that Cap would probably understand.

3

When Sam’s father dies, he takes the Captain America poster down. Paul Wilson was just trying to help people, like always. He stepped in to break up a fight between two stupid kids and everything just fell apart – the cops said the paramedics tried to save him, but by the time they got on the scene, there was nothing anyone could do. Sam thinks that if he could meet Captain America now, he’d ask him why it is that heroes are so often the ones who get fucked over in the end. But Captain America died, too, alone and far from home, and no one will ask him anything ever again.

4

It takes Sam a long time to shake the seed of numbness that plants itself inside of him after what happened to his dad. He finishes high school, then drifts from job to job for a while, not doing much of anything or seeing much of anyone. Later, he won’t be sure whether this was ordinary teenage apathy, residual grief, real depression, or a mix of all three. What he will know is that during these years he doesn’t think about Captain America much at all.

It’s Sam’s mother who turns things around for him. One day, after he slides through the door having quit yet another job, she sits him down at the table in their little apartment, offers him a warm chocolate chip cookie, and proceeds to smack him on the side of the head with one of her oven mitts. 

“Are you going to hide here forever?” she says, and though her mouth is a hard line her eyes are soft. ( _I’m not angry with you_ , Sam remembers her telling him once when she caught him skipping school in junior year, _I’m just frustrated_ ). 

“You don’t even talk to _me_ anymore,” she continues, “I know that nothing’s been the same since your father died…for either of us, but you can’t turn into ice. If there’s anything Paul believed in, it was people reaching out to each other.” 

It doesn’t fix itself overnight – nothing ever does – but that is the beginning of what Sam will refer to later in life as the Picking-Myself-Up Period. He starts volunteering, swallows his pride and sees a therapist at a local clinic, and tries to think about his dad’s life instead of his death. Enlisting comes a year later, and that’s when he meets Riley, who’s the first person to put the idea in his head that he go for pararescue training. That makes sense to Sam, who cares more about protecting _people_ than some abstract idea of country, and he and Riley stick together until the very end. When Sam gets the call that he’s been selected for the EXO-7 F program, he tells them he’s going to stay right where he is unless Riley can come with him. It isn’t romantic (though Riley is the first person Sam tells about having a personal investment in the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell), but the kind of friendship where they both expect to be making corny best man speeches at each other’s weddings in ten years’ time. 

Seeing Riley die is like having his wings torn off of him mid-flight, like falling forever with nothing to hold onto, like being sixteen again with the police knocking on the door to bring bad news. When Sam gets off the plane and steps back onto American soil, alone, everything around him feels like a dream. Any second he’ll wake up to Riley’s freckly grin and a voice saying, “Suit up. We’ve got somewhere to be.” 

That first day home, Sam picks up a copy of the New York Times at a booth on the side of the street. The headline reads CAPTAIN AMERICA MAY RISE FROM THE GRAVE. Underneath the title is a color photo of a bunch of lab coats bustling around a block of solid ice, through which Sam can just make out the faint outline of a familiar shield. Sam thinks of the poster, probably lying in a drawer somewhere now gathering dust, of the man saluting behind that same shield, smiling and optimistic and so, _so_ young. Once Sam has hugged his mother and assured her that, yes, he will stay through the end of the week, he spends several minutes sitting at the kitchen table staring at that newspaper, his eyes scanning the article over and over again without taking in any of it. Eventually, he fishes a pen out of his pocket and writes a short list in the right-hand margin of the article: 

THINGS SOMEBODY SHOULD SAY TO STEVE ROGERS: 

1\. I promise you, however it might seem, it is not better in the ice.  
2\. What do you want to do now?

5

“You can’t run everywhere,” Steve Rogers says, giving him the kind of crooked smile that Sam never would have imagined on Captain America in a million years. Sam watches him get in the car next to freaking Black Widow, and the first thing he thinks is, _nobody at the VA is gonna believe me_.

The second thing he thinks is, _is it my 13-year-old fanboy brain giving me delusions, or were you flirting with me?_

Sam shakes himself. All the questions you’ve ever wanted to ask Captain America, and that’s what’s most important to you? 

He tells himself he starts running that route more often because it gives him the chance to see the nicest parts of the park, and it’s pretty much true. If Sam Wilson is anything, he’s patient. If Captain America wants to show up on your doorstep, he can damn well do it on his own. 

Showing up with a superspy in tow and a highly dangerous mission wasn’t exactly what Sam had in mind, but, hey, he’ll take it.

1

Steve is hunched over the table in the motel room in – where did he say they are? 50 miles outside of Samara? They’ve been to so many archives and safe houses and abandoned military bases in the past couple of weeks that Sam isn’t sure anymore. The table is normal-sized, but Steve makes it look tiny, his bulky shoulders throwing the papers in front of him into shadow.

“You know, man,” Sam says, “no matter how many times you read that file, nothing in it is going to change.” Steve sighs, but he flips the file closed before leaning back in the chair and rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. He’s running himself ragged, and Sam wishes he could make him take a break – maybe give him the hug and the coffee he so obviously needs. Steve would never take it, though, and Sam understands that. If he suddenly had the opportunity to save Riley, to _fix_ it, he wouldn’t sleep until he’d combed the whole damn planet for answers. 

“You can go home if you want,” Steve says, and Sam stifles a laugh.

“That’s the fifth time you’ve said that this week,” Sam tells him, “I’m starting to think you don’t want me tagging along.” 

“Come on, you know that’s not what I mean,” Steve argues, “I just – I don’t want to take you away from your life.” 

Sam looks at Steve, the guy he always thought, if he ever got the chance to meet him, would have all the answers. He wishes he could go back and tell his eighth-grade self that Captain America sometimes forgets how tall he is and walks into doorframes, or that he blushes like a schoolgirl when you tell him you like his drawings. 

“Do you need me?” Sam asks. The question falls out of his mouth before he has a chance to stop it, and he cringes immediately. _Well, Wilson,_ a voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Riley chuckles, _at least you didn’t say ‘do you want me.’ You’d never come back from that one_. 

Steve doesn’t seem fazed, though. He opens the file again, scans over the first few pages of documents and photographs. 

“This is definitely a hell of a lot easier with you here,” Steve states, with that I’m-The-Damn-Captain finality he sometimes slips into even in quiet moments. 

Sam’s not sure whether he should salute or kiss the guy. Maybe, after all this is over, there will be a correct moment for both. For now, Sam just settles for grinning. 

“Then you’re gonna have a hell of a time trying to get rid of me,” Sam says.

“Thanks,” murmurs Steve after a moment, and there’s that blush again. Sam resolves that there are a couple of other questions he’s not going to chicken out of asking Steve Rogers by the time all is said and done. Hell, maybe he should make a list.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to say hi to me on Tumblr, I'm over at [mutantwanda](http://mutantwanda.tumblr.com).


End file.
